A Shrine To Our Youthful Fantasies

Remember The `62 T-bird, The `57 Chevy?

STRASBURG, PA. — The sectional steel roof on the rare 1957 Ford retractable hardtop has reared up and started folding back. The steel cover on its storage compartment has begun to open to accept it.

It is then, in the midst of this metamorphosis from closed to open car, that Sam Gast stops the whirring top mechanism--an electrician`s nightmare consisting of seven reversible motors, 13 switches and 610 feet of wiring.

The Ford is left in this state on the parking lot outside Gast Classic Motorcars. It looks like a blue-and-white praying mantis with whitewalls--a real eye-catcher for this unusual auto museum recently plunked down near here in Amish buggy country.

Inside the front door, in the huge showroom window, is another, even larger effort to turn the heads of passing motorists: a flawless, brilliant red 1966 Cadillac convertible revolving on a huge turntable.

Beyond the showroom is the reason for all this huckstering, a great, gleaming, antiseptic-white hall containing 50 rare and exquisite automobiles worth an estimated $3 million.

Only they aren`t the kinds of cars you`d expect to find in an automobile museum. Only a few are antiques. Most of them are from the `40s, `50s and

`60s.

In other words, the cars on display here are not artifacts from a remote American past. Like the Elvis and Beach Boys music being piped into this exhibition area, they are fragments of our lost youth, the nostalgic wheels that people like Floyd and Anne Hamilton grew up with.

The Hamiltons are 39-year-olds from Cobleskill, N.Y., on vacation with their two kids. They are found in front of a beautifully preserved 1962 Thunderbird convertible.

``It`s like the one they used to drive on `77 Sunset Strip,` `` Anne adds.

``This place really is a trip down memory lane,`` Floyd continues. ``And speaking of memories, how about that `57 Chevy convertible over there? My first car was a `57 Chevy. That was our mating ritual car, right Anne?

``Well, we did take it to the drive-in every weekend,`` she responds, somewhat hesitantly.

The Hamiltons` nostalgic reaction is precisely the visitor response that Sam Gast and his car-crazy clan were counting on when they built this unique classic-car emporium last year.

Their idea was to show cars that people could relate to, not to display automotive fossils. They wanted to put on exhibition those amazing beached chromium whales from the `50s and those gas-guzzling muscle cars from the

`60s. They wanted to make a living doing what they love most: buying, selling and displaying like-new examples of the sometimes beautiful, sometimes ridiculous ways Americans once got from Point A to Point B.

The exhibit consists of cars owned by the Gasts and lent to them by collectors. Thanks to their penchant for buying and selling, and the steady turnover of loaners, the display is constantly changing.

The museum is the loving labor of Sam Gast, a 60-year-old classic-car addict, his wife, Joan, and sons, Jeff, 33, and Douglas, 26.

In 1976, Sam Gast decided to get out of the lucrative beer-distributing business he hated and into the business of buying and selling classics. He rented some warehouse space in New Holland, Pa., and opened shop with his 13- car collection. His first sale, he recalls, was his wife`s beloved 1966 Corvette.

The business went well enough for him to sell the beer distributorship, but there was a problem.

``We noticed that 95 percent of the people who came into our showroom were just there to see the pretty cars, and that wasn`t putting meat on the table.``

So, the family decided to start a business that would combine the beloved buying and selling of beautifully kept cars with a revenue-raising museum and gift shop. To do this, they built their present 22,000-foot facility on Route 896, just outside town.

The new building contains car cleaning and detailing bays, as well as the gift shop and display area.

The collection includes some old iron, such as a 1903 Cadillac and a 1911 Hupmobile, but most of the cars date from the `40s to `60s, many of them leviathan convertibles.

At this writing, the display includes some outstanding cars on loan from collectors, including a 1957 Mercedes-Benz Gullwing, a first-year 1953 Corvette with what is believed to be a record low mileage of 9,122, and two show-winning 1957 Thunderbirds.

Among the exceptional Gast-owned vehicles in the exhibit are a remarkable pair of MGs obtained from the Henry Ford Museum. One, a 1929 roadster, is the first MG imported into this country. The other, a 1980 convertible, is the last.

Perhaps the most popular Gast car in the exhibit is the 1971 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow once owned by Michael Jackson`s family. Jackson supposedly learned to drive on this car, which is displayed with one of his signature white sequined gloves.